


you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands

by torigates



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-09
Updated: 2013-04-09
Packaged: 2017-12-08 00:05:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,227
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/754656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/torigates/pseuds/torigates
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two years after the Alpha Pack, Erica appears in Beacon Hills with a blonde toddler propped up against her hip.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you can have the words forgive and forget hold hands

**Author's Note:**

> Is it still considered self indulgent if you're writing it for someone else? For Jules, on her birthday.

Two years after the Alpha Pack, Erica appears in Beacon Hills with a blonde toddler propped up against her hip. 

And, all right. she didn’t so much “appear” like appear in the woods out of nowhere appear, so much as she drove into town in an old Toyota Corolla, and Stiles thinks she may have actually called Derek in advance to let him know she was coming, but it sounds cooler and more dramatic to say she appeared, okay? 

(It’s been a quiet two years, Stiles has been a little bored.)

(It may or may not be possible that one time Scott got turned into a werewolf conditioned him to a life of excitement and adventure. Maybe.) 

Anyway, Erica was back, and she was sporting an adorable blonde two year old toddler as an accessory whose name was Rebecca Rose Reyes, which if you asked Stiles (no one did) was some damn fine alliteration. Kid was probably destined to be some kind of werewolf superhero. 

There’s a lot of werewolf yelling and crying that happens after that (and not enough of it from Becky, in Stiles’ opinion), which he doesn’t really pay attention to because someone plops a toddler down in his lap, and even if said toddler has more claws and teeth than your average two year old she’s still freaking adorable, and also Stiles knows better than to neglect a beautiful woman when she’s sitting in his lap, so. 

From what he can tell, most of the yelling and crying goes something like, “you abandoned us when we needed you,” blah blah, “you could have called,” blah blah, “I just wanted to live my own life,” blah blah, and “I was young and overwhelmed!” etc.

Meanwhile, Becky’s chewing on Stiles’ fist so no one can blame him for not paying attention to the boring emotional stuff. 

“Stiles!” 

Stiles looks up. His fist is completely covered in baby werewolf drool, which would be disgusting if it were adult werewolf drool, but something about the fact that it comes from an adorable blonde makes him okay with it.Still, he wipes it on Becky’s face and tickles her stomach a little. She squeals, delighted. 

“Stiles!” 

He looks up again to see Derek scowling at him. 

“...Yes?” he asks when it becomes clear Derek isn’t going to add anything else. 

“Do you have anything to add to this conversation?” Derek asks. 

“Um,” Stiles says, not wanting to admit he hasn’t been paying attention. “Erica, great to have you back?” he hedges. 

This seems to satisfy half the room. Erica beams at him, Isaac and Boyd glare, and Stiles lets his attention be drawn back to the bundle of toothy joy sitting in his lap. He buries his nose in her loose curls, and she punches him the face with alarming strength. 

Oh right, werewolves.

He rubs his nose a little, and when he looks up, Derek is still scowling at him, and Erica has a look of such intense pride on her face, it almost hurts a little bit to look at her. 

He ruffles Becky’s hair instead, and dodges another punch to the face. 

 

-

 

Erica and Becky move in with Derek “just until she can get back on her feet.” Stiles has his own private thoughts about how true that might be, but he’s (mostly) learned to keep his private thoughts to himself. 

Derek seems over the moon (ha ha pun intended) with happiness when Erica agrees. Boyd scowls some more. Stiles has his own private thoughts about _that_ , but he keeps those to himself, too. 

 

-

 

Erica won’t talk about where she’s been the last two years. At least she won’t talk to Stiles about it. Whenever he asks (and to be fair, it’s not so much “asking” as Stiles awkwardly trying to talk around the subject), she just shrugs and tucks her hair behind her ear. “Figuring some stuff out,” she says. 

She won’t talk about Becky’s dad either. Stiles hasn’t actually mustered up the courage to say anything about that, either directly or indirectly. She seems happy enough, and Becky is so beautiful and wonderful and smart, Stiles figures it doesn’t really matter at all. 

Stiles gets it though. There are a lot of things from the past two years that he doesn’t like to talk about either. A lot of things he wishes no one else knew, because maybe then he could put them in a tiny box under his heart and pretend they weren’t true. 

He knows they should maybe talk about that night at Gerard’s. It would be healthy for them to talk about it, and move past it. Except every time he opens his mouth to try he still feels the panic rising up inside him as real now as it was that night, and he _can’t_ , he just can’t. 

Erica grips his shoulder once, while he’s playing with Becky, and he sees the look in her eyes like maybe she understands. He doesn’t care if that’s the cowards way out, he’s going to take it anyway. 

 

-

 

Perhaps, in retrospect, Stiles will look back at this as some kind of master plan. If he had control of his higher brain functions, he’s sure he would feel that he has been conspired upon by a greater power, or maybe just Erica. 

Instead, Stiles has lost all ability to think. 

He stopped by Derek’s apartment for... some reason. He totally had a valid reason when he stopped by, a reason which he knew and was fully in control of only moments earlier. Now however, all he can see is Derek sitting cross-legged on the living room floor with Becky perched in front of him. 

That would be adorable enough to fry his brain cells on a regular day, except she’s got her head tilted back, and Derek’s running his fingers gently through her hair. On the floor around them is a brush, two combs, and several colourful hair clips and ties. 

Stiles watches dumbstruck while Derek deftly pulls her hair back into an elaborate french braid, and ties the end off with an orange elastic, before kissing the top of her head. She turns around and sorts through the plethora of clips on the ground before picking up three of them and presenting them to Derek. 

He looks at them seriously for a moment before nodding. “Good choice,” he says, and fastens them into her hair. 

She beams at him and throws her arms around his neck, and Derek hugs her back for a moment, before tickling her sides. She squeals and squirms out of his grasp before running off somewhere in the apartment. Probably to find Erica, Stiles thinks.

Derek doesn’t notice him for several minutes while he picks up the clips that didn’t make the cut. He gathers them carefully in the palm of his hand, like they are delicate things to be cherished. Stiles thinks about the way Becky had examined each one, and thinks maybe they are. 

When Derek finally does look up, he actually startles. 

Stiles thought Derek had been ignoring him. 

“How--how long have you been standing there?” Derek asks. His cheeks are adorably pink. Stiles fights down the now familiar urge to tangle his fingers and Derek’s nape and drag him in and just kiss him straight on the mouth. 

“Not long,” he says, trying to give Derek a break. 

Something must show on his face, because Derek scowls. Stiles doesn’t say anything. 

Finally, “Laura taught me,” he says. “She was shit at it.” 

“Language!” Erica calls from the depths of the apartment. Derek actually looks chastised. 

Stiles covers his smile with his hand and doesn’t say anything. Just nods along. 

Derek narrows his eyes. Stiles nods some more. From the back room, Erica calls his name, and Stiles rushes off to her. 

 

-

 

The entire pack is at Derek’s for some kind of team dinner. Despite Derek and Erica’s best efforts things have still be tense. Stiles stays out of it because he doesn’t care all that much what other people’s damage is. 

Isaac and Allison are cooking something that smells delicious in the kitchen. Stiles has wandered in there twice already, only to have Isaac beat him with a wooden spoon. His fingers are a bit swollen from where they’ve been smacked. 

Scott and Becky are playing in the other room. Stiles can hear her laughing every few minutes, and he’s thinking about going into the bedroom to join them. It’s gotta be more fun than whatever Derek and Boyd are talking about. Something, something pack politics. Stiles was listening for like five minutes before he got distracted by the food in the kitchen and then he couldn’t drag his attention back to whatever they were talking about. 

Becky was giggling and screaming “higher” every five minutes, so Stiles was pretty sure Scott was throwing her around by her ankles. Stiles thinks Erica is probably supervising, but he lost track of her somewhere around the third time Isaac hit him with a kitchen utensil. 

He dozes for a few minutes, and when he opens his eyes Becky is standing patiently in front of Derek while he fixes her windswept hair. 

When he’s done he hands her the extra clip. She gestures for him to lean forward, and when he does she fastens it to the short strands on the side of his head. 

Stiles has to bite his knuckles hard to stop any sound from escaping. Derek looks up and meets his eyes from across the room. 

 

-

 

The bath is the last straw. 

Stiles is only human, after all. Just a regular, plain old human, no fancy werewolf powers, no adorable tendency to braid little girls’ hair, just regular plain old Stiles. 

And mostly, he’s fine with that. 

Stiles has accepted that he’s the kind of guy who develops long lasting attachments to people who don’t feel the same way as he does. After all the embarrassment that went down with Lydia, he’s tried really hard to respect Derek’s boundaries and choices, and to remember that just because Derek looks amazing all the time but _especially_ with a toddler at his side that is no reason to jump him. 

No reason at all. 

That’s why Stiles feels the bath is just--well, it’s just _mean_ is what it is. 

Erica asks him to go and get her some cotton balls from under the sink so she can paint her nails while they watch their movie. Stiles isn’t sure why he doesn’t hear the two of them in there. The only thing he can come up with is that the volume on the television combine with Erica shouting her instructions was enough to disguise the sound of sloshing water. 

He opens the bathroom door.

Derek is sitting on the floor in front of the tub, shirtless. His arms and chest, even some of his neck is wet from all the splashing Becky must be doing. She’s rocking a soap mohawk. Derek has sprayed large gobs of his shaving cream around the inside of the bath and Becky is happily drawing patterns in the thick suds. Stiles briefly catches the joyful expression on Derek’s face before his presence is recognized. 

Stiles flees. 

 

-

 

Derek finds Stiles at home a couple hours later. Stiles considers it a great personal accomplishment that he’s not banging his head against the desk. 

“Where’d you go?” Derek asks. 

Stiles stares at him for a moment. “...Home,” he says, gesturing around him. “Obviously.” 

Derek rolls his eyes. It’s Stiles’ lot in life that he finds even that obnoxious gesture equally attractive and adorable. 

“Why?” Derek asks. 

Stiles considers his answer for a brief moment, quickly ruling out “I found the sight of you bathing a small child so sexually attractive I had to leave or risk jizzing my pants.” Finally he settles on shrugging his shoulders. 

Derek rolls his eyes some more, crosses his arms over his chest, and scowles. 

Stiles throws his hands up into the air. “Fine!” he says, springing to his feet. “Fine. I found the sight of you bathing a small child so sexually attractive I had to leave or risk jizzing my pants.”

Derek stares at him.

“Is that what you want to hear, Derek?” Stiles asks. “No, it’s not. But you had to push, didn’t you. Are you happy now?” 

Derek stares some more. It’s quiet in Stiles’ bedroom, and he feels his cheeks heating up with embarrassment. Well. That was foolish. 

Stiles fiddles with the sleeve of his shirt. Derek continues to stare. Stiles worries he may have broken Derek’s brain, and thinks about how he’s going to break it to the rest of the pack that he broke their alpha’s brain with unwanted sexual advances. 

That’s going to be a fun conversation. 

“Yes,” Derek says. 

For a moment Stiles thinks Derek actually managed to read his mind, and that he’s agreeing with his inner monologue. Then he rewinds the last few moments of their conversation. 

“What?” he asks. 

Derek takes three steps across Stiles’ bedroom. “Yes,” he says. “That’s what I wanted to hear. I had to push.” 

He smiles and cups Stiles’ face between his hands. 

“Yes. I’m happy now.” 

Stiles stares at him dumbfounded for several moments, a slow spreading grin appears on his face.

When Derek leans in, he kisses Stiles’ teeth.


End file.
